how many miles have others gone without problems? were these shocks bottoming out because the car was lowered? just wondering as my shocks/bushings and 14 mm bolts are sitting on my bench waiting for a free weekend to put them on.
SAFETY ISSSUE: Check your STRANGE shocks NOW!
- Thread starter hmwave
- Start date
ShelbyGuy said:
First off this was not a coil-over application.
Second the failure was not at the bolt.
Third your comment that the bold is just "barely big enough" to affix the damper is totally invalid. Ford used 4 12mm bolts to hold the entire IRS assembly including the Differential, LCAs, and springs to the chassis and control it in all axes of movemnt. On the other hand each shock has a 14mm bolt and primarily controls a single axes of movement. The 14mm bolt has a nominal cross-section area approximately ~36% larger then the 12mm bolts which are substantially larger
How many bolt failures have you heard of in total? If you don't have an exact number we can start with a rough one. Personally I don't know of a single bolt failure on the LCA shock bolt from any application in an IRS equipped vehicle. Can it happen yes, but if it has not happened yet with the number of coil-over equipped IRS vehicles then it is not a rational concern IMO.
swlacobra said:
My first thought as well. :shrug:
ford's bean counters mandate cost reduction. its the smallest bolt the engineers felt would do the job. when you build them by the thousands, a tenth of a cent matters.
while, admittedly, i have yet to see it happen to a mustang, i have seen 3 non-mustang cars shear that bolt. its not pretty.
i dont have to burn my hand to know the stove is hot.
while, admittedly, i have yet to see it happen to a mustang, i have seen 3 non-mustang cars shear that bolt. its not pretty.
i dont have to burn my hand to know the stove is hot.
toofast4u said:
swlacobra said:
In the 900 miles I drove on them I'm not aware of any bottoming out. Everything was quiet and normal from the rear of mine until I started to hear the knocking sound of the first failed shock.
I'm interested in knowing how many miles others have driven so far with the Strange's and bushing set.
just send the shocks back with out the eyes.. say they fell off on the road some where.. Going to check mine out now...
mk
mk
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hmwave said:
Here's my thoughts on the failure mode.
1. The bushings were an extremely tight fit in my Strange shocks so I had to press them in while out of the car with a 3' breaker bar and heavy bolt and washers. I had to use enough force that I thought something would snap but it didn't.
Result: there's no way the bushings can rotate inside the shock eyelets. And the eyelet was already under 'splitting pressure' from the tight bushings.
2. The lower mounting bolt is torqued to 98lb/ft firmly locating the hard bushings against the two thin washers and LCA mounting face.
Result: the shock eye is likely to have zero to near zero rotational articulation around the LCA mounting bolt.
3. As the LCA articulates in normal driving the rotationally immovable shock shell is repeatedly rocked left to right along the driver-passenger axis of the car. In shocks with rubber bushings the rubber alternately gives as this occurs so allows a few degrees of rotation to accomodate the LCA movement.
With the hard bushings bolted hard into and against the LCA the shock eyelet doesn't rotate so the rotational stress is transferred into the top of the shock eyelet.
Result: the eyelet is repeatedly stressed and the metal eventually fatigues and seperates.
My shocks tore along the shell dimension that was receiving the majority of the 'rocking' stress, consistent with this failure mode theory.
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Cobra-R said:
These were fitted to my Eibach Pro sprung, OEM IRS '03.
Strange does not recommend them for the '03 with IRS.
However we don't know if that's simply because they don't fit without an adapter bushing, or because they are not designed to take the IRS load.
This problem may just be my bushings being super tight and not allowing sufficient articulation, or it may be a combination of that plus a weaker Strange eyelet that couldn't take the load.
I'm sending the broken shocks to Doug for analysis.
Cobra-R said:
I didn't have any trouble fitting them and getting the top nut torqued down when I jacked the wheel up under the LCA to locate the shock spindle in the towers.
However I do recall the at-rest lengths of the shocks to be different. The OEM and 00R's were quite a bit longer out of the car than the Strange shocks.
I just compared the OEM and 00R shocks with the Strange shocks.
The eyelet shells of all look nearly identical in diameter and the 00R shock eyelet is only slightly longer than the Strange. The shell walls of all also look to be the same thickness.
The Strange weld that holds the shell to the shock body is less substantial than the OEM and 00R shocks but that was not the failure point so I'm not sure it's pertinent.
Assuming the metal is of the same rating it appears the lack of articulation is the culprit at least on my car.
For those whose bushings fitted in with lighter pressure I think you might be OK.
However, unless the bushings are long enough to butt against each other in the middle of the shell, it's possible they are pressed hard against the eyelet sides when the bolt is torqued, which is likely to cause the same lack of rotational articulation that appears to have caused the failure in my shocks.
I'm interested in how much force folks had to use to fit the bushings and how many miles each have driven since, to identify any pattern.
The eyelet shells of all look nearly identical in diameter and the 00R shock eyelet is only slightly longer than the Strange. The shell walls of all also look to be the same thickness.
The Strange weld that holds the shell to the shock body is less substantial than the OEM and 00R shocks but that was not the failure point so I'm not sure it's pertinent.
Assuming the metal is of the same rating it appears the lack of articulation is the culprit at least on my car.
For those whose bushings fitted in with lighter pressure I think you might be OK.
However, unless the bushings are long enough to butt against each other in the middle of the shell, it's possible they are pressed hard against the eyelet sides when the bolt is torqued, which is likely to cause the same lack of rotational articulation that appears to have caused the failure in my shocks.
I'm interested in how much force folks had to use to fit the bushings and how many miles each have driven since, to identify any pattern.
If you had the shocks set on a stiffer setting, maybe. But the springs take the bulk of the load. Right? I thought the shocks are there primarily for dampening.hmwave said:
Strange is a reputable company. That's not to say that they didn't get some bad product from their supplier. But, I've seen these shocks repeatedly hold up under a LOT of stress.
They were on live axle cars, but I really don't see where that would make any difference. I mean, all the shock knows is that it is going up & down. :shrug:
Cobra-R said:
Yes.
The sleeve typically has a rubber material between it and the shell which provides compliance for the rotational movement.
Ironic that the point of the hard bushings is to eliminate that compliance to reduce or stop wheel hop!
I wasn't brave (or stupid) enough to test wheel hop without shocks attached :nono:
Interesting that it failed at the points above where it was welded but the weld did not break. The actual steel ring of metal broke. We beat the crap out of my car for hundreds of miles to try to test these things out, no issues with mine. I am still using them.
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